We Will Be Heard: Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States

About the Book

In We Will Be Heard, noted political scientist Jo Freeman chronicles the struggles of women in the United States for political power. Most of their stories are little-known, but Freeman's compelling portrait of women working for change reminds us that women have never been silent in the political affairs of the nation. From J. Ellen Foster's address to the 1892 Republican Convention to Nancy Pelosi's 2007 election as the first female Speaker of the House, women have worked to influence politics at every level. Well before most could vote, women campaigned for candidates and lobbied to shape public policy. Men welcomed their work, but not their ideas. Even with equal suffrage women faced many barriers to full political participation. The fifteen case studies of women's struggles for political influence in this book provide the historical context for today's political events. Starting with an overview of when and why political women have been studied, the three sections of the book look at different ways in which women have broken barriers, practiced politics, and promoted public policy. These engaging and accessible stories are even more important in today's political climate, when a woman can finally be a front-runner in a presidential race. Readers of all political stripes will enjoy the history behind modern politics in this story of women struggling to make their voices heard.

Table of Contents:

Prologue: The Search for Political Woman
Part I: Practicing Politics
Chapter 1: The Iowa Origins of Organized Republican Women
Chapter 2: "One Man, One Vote; One Woman, One Throat": Women in New York City Politics, 1890–1910
Chapter 3: The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912
Chapter 4: All the Way for the ERA: Winning and Losing in Virginia
Part II: Breaking Barriers
Chapter 5: The Women Who Ran for President
Chapter 6: Ruth Bryan Owen: Florida's First Congresswoman
Chapter 7: Marion Martin of Maine: A Mother of Republican Women
Chapter 8: Gender Gaps in Presidential Elections
Chapter 9: Feminism and Antifeminism in the Republican and Democratic Parties
Chapter 10: Gender Representation in the Democratic and Republican Parties
Part III: Promoting Policy
Chapter 11: "Equality" vs. "Protection": Setting the Agenda after Suffrage
Chapter 12: How "Sex" Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy
Chapter 13: Congressional Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment
Chapter 14: Comparable Worth
Epilogue: The Long Road to Madame Speaker

About the Author :
Jo Freeman is author of A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics, The Politics of Women's Liberation, and At Berkeley in the Sixties. She is the coeditor of Waves of Protest and editor of Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies and five editions of Women: A Feminist Perspective. For more information see www.jofreeman.com.

Review :
Provides the insight of a fervent participant in politics rather than dry academic theories. . . . An enjoyable collection of historical essays. . . . Highly recommended. Her scholarly works have consistently reflected both of these pursuits by blending meticulous scholarship with an understanding of events derived from personal experience. . . . An outstanding feminist scholar. . . . Material blending careful research, personal experience, and knowledge shed important light on efforts to enact policies that sought to improve the lives and chances of American women and to overcome the obstacles confronting those seeking to make these changes. Many undergraduate and graduate students will find this material useful for understanding women's attempts to 'break the glass ceiling.' . . . The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the field of women and politics. Fourteen stimulating essays on the hidden history of women in politics. Jo Freeman is the best of all possible political scientists: one committed to activism and truth at the same time. Anyone who reads We Will Be Heard is likely to get hooked on the drama of the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress or the mystery of the missing-from-history fifty women who ran for President—and become as fascinated with politics as a true democracy requires. A compelling and authoritative analysis of women in the past century of American politics. This classic study is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of how women shaped American politics and how American politics shaped women's public activism from the 1890s to the present. What a windfall of history and wisdom from the doyenne of the study of women and politics! Freeman's essays offer new information and rich insights into more than a century of history of women in party and electoral politics, policy formation, and gendered voting patterns.